CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-98441

HighCVSS 7.8
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.17%

6th percentile - higher than 6% of all known CVEs

Summary

A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's net/sched act_ct module. When an skb with an unconfirmed conntrack entry is cloned, both clones may process the same shared entry, modifying expectation list pointers and causing a UAF on the destruction path. The issue primarily affects NAT without commit.

Risk Assessment

The vulnerability can lead to kernel memory corruption, potentially causing a system crash (panic) or kernel-level code execution. However, it requires specific processing of cloned packets in the same conntrack zone, which is unlikely in typical network pipelines.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix for CVE-2026-98441. If updating is not possible, consider restricting act_ct rules with NAT without commit or monitoring for unusual kernel crashes.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_ct: avoid modifying shared unconfirmed ct entry In a case where skb with an unconfirmed ct entry gets cloned, we may end up processing both again but with different sets of extensions. The series of events: 1. The first clone wants to commit and runs the helpers wiring up the extension pointer into the expectation list. 2. Then it looses the confirmation keeping the entry unconfirmed. 3. Second clone now wants to commit labels or run NAT and adds the new extension for that breaking the pointer in the expectation list causing UAF on the destruction path later. While this is possible to trigger, there should be no practical network pipeline where we need to process both clones without modifications in the same zone. So, let's just reset the entry in case for some reason we got an skb with a shared one. This doesn't affect any known use cases, but avoids any potential problems with sharing and modification of the unconfirmed ct entry. Unlike openvswitch module, act_ct allows for NAT without commit. Changing that would be a uAPI break. So, act_ct needs to reset on NAT regardless of the commit flag to avoid reallocation of the extension space. This, however, doesn't really change the picture for sensible networking cases as there should be no need to run the same packet twice (before and after the clone) through conntrack without packet header or zone changes and without commit. The fixes tag points to the introduction of helpers, since that's the main UAF trigger for the sharing.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS